Raven Alexis Blog

Raven Alexis

Happiness - My New Years Resolution

You know, they say that the biggest problem with self employment and owning your own business is that people generally can’t self motivate and often have a hard time completing tasks because they have no boss overseeing them. I’ve always wondered about this – if you honestly love something so much that you’ve sacrificed every safety net, every guarantee of success, and you’ve chosen to believe that you can do something amazing, why wouldn’t you want to do it every second of the day?

I have to say, that in almost four years of being in the adult entertainment industry, owning my own company, and being in charge of my own career, I have never had to “force” myself to work. In fact, I have quite the opposite problem. I’ve often thought that maybe I’m just a workaholic, but whatever the case, I have often been accused of never being able to put work aside. I am either on my laptop or my cell phone from 5 am (yes I answer emails while running on the treadmill at the gym), to whenever I go to bed, which is often quite late, because there’s just that “one more thing” that needs done. For a long time, I wondered if I honestly do put my career as too high of a priority – especially after hearing it from a lot of people in my life. I don’t have to own my own company, I don’t have to do all this work by myself, I could just get an agent and show up for a scene a few times a month. I don’t have to run a website, answer my fans’ emails, or even write my own blogs.

You’re probably wondering why I’m pontificating on these things. Well, you see, I’ve had a chance to really think about all this since for the last four days I have been bed ridden with a fractured hip. I have the opportunity to watch movies, eat ice cream, be waited on, and sleep endless hours. Sounds heavenly, doesn’t it? Well, needless to say, what have I ended up doing? Conference calls, emails, working on the website, and yes, even making a trip out of the house on crutches. Where did I go on this trip? Starbucks maybe? Coldstone? To get a manicure? Nope … to get my AIM test and buy signing outfits for the Adult Entertainment Expo next week. Yes, I’m still going to be at the expo and the awards show – on crutches (hopefully, really pretty, blinged out ones – I digress). Sexy, I know. But I wouldn’t miss it for the world! In fact, I think that after this next week, crutches might become the next niche fetish category! Ok, maybe not, but it’s worth a try. ;)

So what I have realized while laying in bed, and looking back on 2010, as well as my career, is that I absolutely love what I do. Maybe some people aren’t pursuing their true passions, and that’s why they can’t seem to motivate themselves to get up every morning and do their work. I don’t know for sure, because I can’t judge or assume anything about any one else’s life. All I know is that I wouldn’t spend my days any other way than devoting myself to this wonderful, crazy career. I love making movies, I truly look forward to responding to every single wonderful email that I get from my fans, and I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to meet them for anything. I don’t really care that I’ll be on crutches at the AEE, because I feel like the luckiest girl in the world to be there and have such supportive fans, and for the honor of being nominated for so many AVN awards this year!

I’m going to conclude this blog with a thank you to Xcritic, my fans, all the wonderful companies that I have been so fortunate to work with, my amazing friends in the industry, and the people in my life that support me in the things that truly make me happy and fulfilled. My resolution for 2011, and my hope for everyone that reads this, is that we all consider and find those things that make us truly happy, and do them with all the fervor that we can possibly muster. As one of my favorite philosophers, Kahlil Gibran, so eloquently said, “Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.”